Thread 25 : To feel disappointed - and disgusted and vindicated now too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 24 IS FULL

The Observer's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...
First thread: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet
Links to threads 2-16, the other 20 Observer articles and videos to date, Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement, our timeline and sources can all be accessed in the OP and first few posts of Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5403285-thread-17-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?
Links to threads 18-20 can be found in the OP of Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5460943-thread-21-to-feel-disappointed-and-now-disgusted-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?
Thread 22:www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5470952-thread-22-to-feel-disappointed-and-now-disgusted-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?
Thread 23:www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5475246-thread-23-to-feel-disappointed-and-now-disgusted-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

After 24,000 posts there are still recent, new and up-and-coming things to look out for on the path.
Recent:

• Salt Path: A Very British Scandal, available on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV, 15th December 2025
• ‘Don’t look for the money. I’ve taken it all’: Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s ‘confession’ that she stole from her family | The Observer
• Observer Newsroom: The Real Salt Path Story, Thursday 8th January 2026

New:

• Podcast series (7 episodes) from The Observer's award-winning Investigative Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou (and including a shoutout to our threads), 13th January 2026: The Walkers: The real Salt Path | The Observer
• The Observer, 18th January 2026: The Salt Path scandal: a hunch, a hint and six months of ... and Publishers agree The Salt Path crossed a line | The Observer
• Ask Me Anything thread MNHQ here: AMA with award winning investigative journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou, Weds 28th Jan, 7-9pm | Mumsnet

Up-and-coming:

• Our Chloe's short video about Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's first book How not to Dal dy Dir - date to be confirmed.
• BBC Podcast - date to be confirmed

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse are welcome. It would be helpful to get the background from at least some of the Observer exposé items before posting. The Observer's new podcast series The Walkers (link above) covers most things.
To all - Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Remember, even Hollywood rabbits attract the odd flea. Please do not engage with drive-by scolders and ploppers who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. For 7 months we have done amazingly well together for 24 very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in our usual reasonable and respectful fashion is very welcome.

If you are posting about a podcast, please start your post with the episode number you are commenting on, for clarity and to help others avoid spoilers if they wish to do so. Many thanks.

After listening to The Walkers: The real Salt Path podcast episodes from The Observer my thoughts are even more with the Walker/Winns' victims. I also believe that the publishers, agent and prizegivers must now act and be seen to act.

As we enter our quarter century thread riding the community charabanc, as always keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 24 IS FULL Thread 24 : To feel disappointed - and now disgusted and vindicated too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

She's done a lot of other damage as well as that. But I don't think Penguin cares as long as she's making them money. I wonder if there's any case to be made for her bringing their name into disrepute because of lying about the truthfulness of her 'memoir'?

But PRH itself would need to bring the case, thereby drawing more attention to its own lack of due diligence. Or if they were making a counter case for reputational damage as a defence if SW sued them for declining to publish OWH (if they did decline). Either way, I think it would be difficult to prove. They’d have to show a drop in profits as well as her specific sales, and/or high profile authors leaving for another publisher and/or unusual numbers senior staff departing, and to be able to link it to the Observer revelations.

Plus there’s clearly no will to. To make the case credible they’d have to have acted far sooner to limit the reputational damage they claim to be suffering by issuing statements, distancing themselves, apologising for failures in due diligence, firing someone, announcing that they’re changing blurb copy or won’t be publishing more RW books etc etc.

But they’ve done none of that, only postponed OWH twice.

Yes, either that or there’s a lot of stuff being batted around by lawyers that isn’t common knowledge. David Walliams was making his publishing company a lot of money, was one of the most popular authors for children in the last decade or so and I knew parents and teachers who would lower the bar to the floor to make their boys read a book and his books were of that credential. He has been unceremoniously dropped. Come on Penguin! It’s time to send Sal the same way for causing harm to vulnerable people with books she classifies as truth which are anything but and with her lies about medical conditions and diagnosis’ that never happened.
I recoiled physically when reading the post about her Instagram and specifically about nursing some baby owls. This is the woman who knows exactly how to play the game with her readers and pull their heartstrings. She’s done it before twice, the same way even, in her first two books.

It’s possible, I suppose. I just think the David Walliams situation is different. It wasn’t a book content issue, it was alleged misbehaviour towards female staff serious enough to have warranted a year of internal investigation and a rumoured five-figure settlement to an employee who had left the company. Despite his enormous sales, it was clearly considered significantly reputationally damaging, or potentially so, enough for them to drop him. Possibly further threats of legal action from employees to come, or more dirt to uncover, plus a new, female interim CEO. Plus he’d been recorded a few years earlier, using derogatory, sexually-explicit language about contestants on Britain’s Got Talent. No one wants a children’s author they imagine more stuff like that will emerge from. But I think the crunch for him is that his sales had dropped off a cliff in 2025.

Some people still seem to think it's a witch hunt!

'her work sings of honesty'

I wonder what exactly he thinks people 'aren't going to like about what she says?' That homelessness is rife in Cornwall? That people with no money really struggle? That losing your home is an awful awful thing to happen and combined with illness it's enough to make you reevaluate your life?

Nobody is going to disagree with any of that. In fact, most people will agree with what she says. Apart from the 'this is all real and happened to me' part, Sal's books aren't crammed with lies. Her social commentary is fine. It's the fact that she's pretending to identify with it that is the huge enormous fib. That and the 'Moth is dying' stuff.

But it's not content that is going to have people up in arms with disagreement. I think he's misunderstanding the nature of the beast, that Sal telling everyone that her books are true is what we're objecting to, and pretending that Moth had an illness that ought to have killed him years ago.

I agree that it was different reasons, not the book content and for Walliams it should have happened a lot sooner. However, the Walkers have been playing a dangerous game and although they have made their current living legally as opposed to simply stealing whatever they wanted, it’s very immoral and because of its “Truth” label and support from a major publishing house, some people continue to believe it and spread the harm further. I find it very toxic. That Facebook post above makes me despair, reducing everything to class and completely missing the point that this pair of sheisters loved money, were greedy show-offs and capitalistic. She can talk the talk of a liberal left but lies through her teeth. People like that poster are putty in her hands.

Some interesting discussions going on above. Where I am at now is : So what do we do about it? We are all consumers and citizens - so surely we can at least have a decent explanation. It seems that when there is eventually a significant move by an authority it is a matter of knowing who should be contacted.

In a completely different situation, the BBC reported on Andrew sending emails to Epstein re: trade. Then, the group Republic reported it to the police. In the Belle Gibson case it was a government agency that protects and promotes the interests of consumers, in the Australian state Victoria. Penguin paid A$30,000 as a penalty for having failed to validate that the book was true.

I should be grateful to know who is the correct authority to contact regarding the continuing marketing of the Raynor Winn brand. I have a slight problem in that I cannot say that I have ever bought anything or watched anything!

I think it would come under trading standards - misleading description. PRH would find it hard to argue that the small print in their disclaimer over-rode the 'unflinchingly honest' claim.

All of the below is what Penguin are using to sell the books on their website, let alone the extras on the book covers:

Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path.

After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline;

Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but against all medical odds, he seems revitalised in nature.

Raynor knows that her husband Moth's health is declining, getting worse by the day. She knows of only one cure. It worked once before. But will he - can he? - set out with her on another healing walk?

I just looked on the RPH website and Landlines is no longer appearing when you search for RW (unless I've missed something). I wonder if they are seeing that as the most problematic book in terms of health claims.

Has anyone tried to claim a refund on the grounds they were missold the book?

It came up when I searched it. I had a glimmer of hope then!

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320470/landlines-by-winn-raynor/9781405947787

No, I only bought TSP new and didn’t keep the receipt. The other two were secondhand but I have paid about £20 in total as one of the secondhand was a hardback first edition.

@SaltyTea It is still there and I have been able to read the beginning on the Penguin website. I see that Sal sets everything up for what will be the eventual miracle scan result, and the bit that confused Bill Cole. The extract I noticed was:

There was only one way this disease would progress and that was forwards: a slow-moving, unstoppable wildfire of destruction, burning through precious brain cells and destroying all the functions they control.

The whole way it is written is very emotional and I can see how people began to really care about Moth, especially his neighbours. Surely, to say that there was then a medical consultation that showed a reversal is factually and morally wrong?

Thanks @BrandyAndLovage and @HatStickBoots I searched on the RPH site. It seems a bit strange it is not listed there, but probably not cause for hope!
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2186805/raynor-winn/

Some of the claims definitely seem on the strong side. You would have thought they would have edited some of the publicity given what they now know and have not really denied. By all accounts, their claims to have done due diligence are also pretty flimsy.

I read a legal article about the James Frey reader class action suits against A Million Little Pieces’ publisher in the US (settled out of court beforehand) a while back. I gathered that one of the challenges with trying to prove you wouldn’t have a bought a book unless you knew it was true is that you’d have to prove you never bought fiction. The publisher did offer refunds to buyers of AMLP, but they didn’t make it particularly easy. You had to physically send in a specific page from your paper copy to claim it, and not many people apparently did.

It's surprising the wikipedia entry for TSP (film) has no mention of the controversy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salt_Path_(film)

The TSP and RW pages could do with updates too following all that has come out since the doc and podcast.

I think "astute" and "trusted" can be ruled out now.

My local bookshop still has piles of all three books proudly displayed.

But will he - can he? - set out with her on another healing walk?

That seems, to my non-legal brain, quite a definite statement - the walk is healing. It heals. It's not walking (verb) per se that heals - its A(nother) Walk (noun).

And that's obviously garbage.

Yes the film seems to have entered into its own sphere. It’s very, very odd. It’s a fictionalised account of a fictionalised account.

It's all so meta, incredibly self referencing now, isn't it? We are indeed in the Weird Sphere (or the Twilight Zone)

I gathered that one of the challenges with trying to prove you wouldn’t have a bought a book unless you knew it was true is that you’d have to prove you never bought fiction.

Thanks @SableGules . It makes zero sense though. If you eg order a lobster online and they deliver a leg of lamb, you wouldn't have to prove that you never eat meat. Same should apply, the thing that you ended up with was not what you paid for.

I think I'm right in thinking that what we are most interested in is the misinformation that continues to be spread in the Raynor Winn books - with particular reference to the medical claims, i.e. the walks heal, the degenerative disease has been reversed, other sufferers felt as if they were not dealing with their own degenerative diseases with enough determination, etc.

The refund for the books was just to highlight the problem and make someone in authority aware of the problem. When I have looked around at what to do in the UK it all seems to lead back to Citizens Advice as linked below.

As I say, in a post above, I have not bought anything from the Winn brand but I still have a problem with it. So I have taken this initial advice:

If you have a problem with a product or service bought from a company

• what you’ve done so far to try to solve the issue

In this regard, I have contacted Penguin again: [email protected]

I will take it from there.

Contact the consumer service - Citizens Advice

Tbh that is such a sickly sweet ott review, I'd assume that a friend/Salray/someone paid was behind it.

I discount any that are so ott when I'm looking at reviews; if anything it makes me suspicious that something is up and they're desperately trying to hide it.

Yes indeed, it really is such nonsense. Whole lying and dissembling aspect aside, her writing does not deserve such gushing praise. I can see why people liked it when they thought it was true, because of the story and don't blame them, but George Orwell she ain't. It is so sickly I raise my eyebrow ala Roger Moore also.

Many many people don't read much. A lot of this is because they think they 'don't like books' or don't like a particular type of book. So they avoid all books or all books in the genre they dislike.

So when they DO read a book that they enjoy, they are bowled over. ALL books are bad! But this book is good! So this book must be something extra special. It's not that they are comparing the book with all other books, they are comparing it with all the other books that they have read. Which, horrifically often, is not very many.